Bragg Family South

Last Thursday I joined Arkansas Archeological Survey archeologist Bob Scott on an excavation not far north of Warren, Arkansas (which is about 20 miles west of Monticello). This site is on timber company land, and has been heavily looted by local pot-hunters. This first picture shows some of their efforts. They dig in the soft soil and then sift the material looking for anything of value--usually arrowheads and intact pottery. Typically, their efforts destroy the nature of the site, damage the context needed to interpret what was found here, damage or destroy artifacts that have no commercial value, and loot those of value. In many sites (this one included), graves are disturbed, and the remains of people are scattered and destroyed with no thought of the consequences. There is little local law enforcement can or will do to looters--they may be prosecuted for trespassing and/or vandalism if the landowner wants to press charges, and if human remains are disturbed, this can be a felony, ...

After a laproscopic procedure taking less than an hour, Hope is currently sailing through her recovery from getting her gall bladder removed. We had to get her to the Pine Bluff hospital for her surgery by 5:30 a.m. so she could get in the operating room at 7:30 a.m. The procedure went well, and after a couple hour wait, they finally got her into a private room to recover...we should have seen the writing on the wall for this "outpatient" treatment!! She was supposed to stay in the hospital overnight (if we lived in Pine Bluff, they would have released her that evening) and then get released in the morning. The kids and I timed our trip up there to roughly coincide with when we had been told to expect her release...8 hours later, after considerable fuming by myself and a planned walk-out of the hospital, the attending surgeon finally got around to rubber-stamping her release, and she finally got home by that evening. Hope felt up to going to a wedding shower for a fellow...